I have to admit that I’m a victim of modern-day cynicism: In the beginning, I was certain that these three bots would be overpriced toys that could only do a negligible amount of cleaning, and I was almost positive they’d run into obstacles or other problems that would require my constant attention. In other words, I was sure that they wouldn’t live up to the hype. But I was in for a surprise.

After using the Roomba 780, Scooba 230 and Scooba 390 for a few weeks, I can decisively say this: These robots may not be perfect, but for what they do, they impressed the heck out of me and my husband.

Granted, we could probably do a better job if we cleaned all our floors ourselves manually, but who wants to do that? So we took a few things in stride, like the fact that the bots can’t lift furniture or move aside clutter to get underneath them, and that even in accessible areas, there were sometimes odd, random spots that were overlooked. We didn’t expect them to be equal replacements for good old-fashioned elbow grease, after all. We just hoped for something that could handle ongoing maintenance reasonably well, and we were actually prepared to be disappointed……………. continues on TechnoBuffalo